Sunday, March 30, 2014

I recently participated in a couple of mini quilt swaps and I received two of the minis this month.

The first one was from the ALQS8. It is called Mason’s Whirl and was made by Marie (no blog) in NH and I really love her design and use of colors. As I have said before, this is a fabulous swap each year.

My second mini quilt came from Sharon as she was my partner this round in our Sewing with Friends swap. Her work on this is perfect and I love how this little quilt says “spring” through and through.

This past year I have been a member of a Japanese X&+ block swap. Our group sadly fell apart along the way and we were only left with a few members. I hated to see the blocks that I had received not be put to good use so I have slowly added more blocks over the year as I made exchange blocks for others. I think I now have enough to make a top with them. After looking at the photo of the blocks, I see a few that need to be changed, but this will be my goal for April’s ALYoF.

One last March project that was finished was a feedsack challenge. Emily provided us with a vintage feedsack to repurpose and this is what I decided to do with mine.

I cut up some old denim jeans, used an orphan quilt block and used the feedsack to create a pillow for the sofa. It has a nifty pocket on the back to store the ever lost remote control! Thanks, Em, for the chance to play with the feedsack.

One last note - Jacquelynne Steve's new Art of Home spring e-magazine is coming out this week. You can go here to sign up for your free copy which is going to be filled with wonderful projects, patterns, recipes and ideas for spring.

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Whew! This has been a quick month. As we approach the final week in March, I have to say that ours has been fantastic.

We have been fortunate to have two sets of houseguests staying with us this month. Needless to say, the computer was cast to the back burner.

Our first guests were neighbors of our who moved to Colorado about eight years ago. We so miss them. Leslie and I could always get into so much creative trouble. While they were here Leslie and I played around with a little eco dyeing. Collecting flowers and tidbits from the yard, we wrapped, packed and cooked our fabrics in jars. The colors are not great in the photo, but they came out so well.
The first jar contained eucalyptus leaves, geranium petals, blueberries and brown onion skins.

The second one was eucalyptus bark, pepper berries, citrus and oak leaves.

For a first attempt at it, I was quite pleased and am eager to try more of the technique. My inspiration for this came from Nat Palaskas who blogs HERE.

Following their visit we were blessed to have my mother’s two “baby” brothers and my cousin’s wife come to stay with us. This was a huge trip for them as both of my uncles are in their late 80s. They had not seen my mom in about 12 years so the visit was incredible and I hated to see them leave on Sunday. We played cards by the hours and laughed until our sides hurt! Coming from Iowa they so enjoyed our warm sunshine after the winter they have experienced.

Three siblings

Although my blog and sewing machine have been silent, I did manage to complete my goal of four NYBeauty blocks for this month's ALYoF. I actually finished six of them.

This is my collection to date - spread out on my design floor!!!

I have some mail that I have received ans will share, but I will wait for my next post so this one isn't too long to read.

Friday, March 7, 2014

I’m really enjoying working on my New York Beauty blocks. This was a QAL from several years ago and although I printed off all of my blocks, I did not get all ten sets finished. The color aqua must be on my mind since that is the RSC14 color this month.

The aqua continued with the arrival of my swap quilt from the ALQS8. This piece was made by Mary Jackson and came from the U.K. I really love the wonderful scrappiness of this quilt and the workmanship is excellent. The colors are fabulous too.

Switching gears a bit…. I completed a table runner for an auction that is coming up later this month. I did one last year for the same auction and it went over really well.

The detail of the machine embroidery is a little hard to see in the photo above, but it was completed using various colors of Floriani threads. These threads are really lovely for machine embroidery. They have such a beautiful sheen to them.

We’ll have little ones for the weekend so there won’t be any sewing being done around here.

Saturday, March 1, 2014

After four name draws of “no reply” bloggers, congratulations go to Ida, the winner of my Uncommonly Corduroy Book Tour Blog Hop. Ida does such beautiful work and I know that she is going to be thrilled with all of the fun projects in this great book.

The new color for March in the RSC14 is teal. I LOVE the color and was really excited about sewing this month’s block.

Now there are three………

In contemplating my goals for my March sewing, I am trying to be realistic. We will be busy entertaining out of town company so I have decided to add at least four more blocks to my N.Y. Beauty project. I first had to fix the first four blocks because I did not have my printer set to scale when I made them. Now they are the same size as my others.

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About Me

I go by many titles - daughter, sister, wife, mother, aunt, grandmother and friend. My husband and I have been married for 47 years and have five children. Our four sons and one daughter are all married and have blessed us with 29 grandchildren. It's a wonderful life!
For 30 years I worked as a R.N. in obstetrics which included labor and delivery, nursery and NICU.